


Three White Horses

by doctorcolubra



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Episode: s05e08, Fix-It of Sorts, Grooming, M/M, Pre-Slash, Service Kink, it's actually aggressively wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 09:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14667801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorcolubra/pseuds/doctorcolubra
Summary: During the two-month time jump of S05E08.  Jared cleans Richard up and takes him along to Muriel's funeral for support.





	Three White Horses

**Author's Note:**

> [Su mentioned](https://shfzw.tumblr.com/post/173905598334/i-wanna-see-some-happy-jared-content-like-him) that Jared really deserved some time to cope with Muriel and Gloria dying. And we all deserve some sweet, anti-cynical Jared content. The title is from an [Andrew Bird song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojBFKzZ8MOs).

“Richard?”

He’s lying flat on his face on that cot. Gilfoyle brought it in one morning, from some sketchy military surplus store. _Caught Dick asleep at his desk this morning. Drooling on the keyboard. It’s unsanitary. So._ Coincidentally, Jared had just arrived with sleeping bags (fresh from Target), hoping that the boys could be persuaded to take some midday naps for self-care.

Unfortunately, providing Richard with a bed in his office created a state that was the polar opposite of self-care. He sleeps here at bizarre hours, like a cat, asleep in the afternoon and wide awake in the night, typing alone in the half-darkened building while the maintenance man vacuums the all-weather carpet in the hall. Dinesh bluntly asked _when do you even shower, man_ and Richard detailed a scheme to use the showers at the gym on the corner, adding that he got the idea from a homeless guy.

Jared feels a little corroded just from being in Richard’s utterly miserable presence, and he’s deliberately taking more care with himself than usual. He still lint-rolls his fleece vests every morning and he still shaves, though Richard and Dinesh have both given it up; Gilfoyle, of course, never took such pains to begin with. “Richard, are you awake?”

“Mm.” Richard doesn’t lift his face from the flat pillow. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of airflow down there. “No.”

“Are you still going to come up to Professorville with me today?”

“Huh?”

“I told you on Wednesday that my friend Muriel passed away, remember? And I asked you if you would go to the funeral with me, and you said—”

“Oh shit,” says Richard, bolting upright and fumbling for his phone. “Today? Fuck, I thought that was tomorrow, goddammit. Sorry, man, sorry—uh, is it too late? I didn’t make you late, did I? I can go jump in the shower—”

“You’re not too late. Holden was supposed to—” Jared swallows back a sharpish comment about Holden’s management of Richard’s calendar. The kid is under enough strain. They all are. “Don’t go to Planet Fitness, okay? We’ll go back to my condo and take an hour to get ready. If you’re sure you want to come, I mean. You don’t have to.”

“No, Jared, c’mon,” says Richard, gathering up his limp old canvas backpack and his shoes. “This was really soon after Gloria, that’s…a lot. Christ, I don’t know what I’m gonna wear…”

“Just let me worry about it.” Jared feels a little sick, taking pleasure in this even when he’s getting ready to say goodbye to a friend. But Richard always presents Jared with a controllable amount of chaos, a mess to clean up, a surface to polish. The promise that a bit of extra effort will finally make everything beautiful. 

_Still so desperate, Donald. Anything to make them need you._

 

They stop at the hacker hostel and Jared retrieves a charcoal suit from Richard’s closet—the one he wore to court, still in its plastic dry-cleaner’s shroud. 

It feels right to have Richard back in the condo, showering in the bathroom while Jared steams the charcoal suit. No mint this time, a little bit of urbane vanity that doesn’t suit the occasion; instead he adds a single droplet of essential oil of Omani frankincense. Very different feel, the diluted hint of scent somber and golden as a gong. 

Jared keeps an emergency drawer of dress socks and underwear still in its packaging. When he was on the street, clean new socks were a luxury that never failed to lift his mood, and sometimes even now he has mornings when he simply can’t tolerate imperfect socks. No loose elastic or twisted seams or stains on the heel. He’s treating himself this afternoon, and Richard too, carefully cutting the plastic tags off and pulling off the sticky wrappers. (Favourite part. Tactile, the wrapper peeling off from the cotton.)

When Richard gets out of the shower, he opens the bathroom door to let the steam out. He’s swathed in Jared’s blindingly white towels, and his shirt is waiting for him, still warm from the iron, collar and cuffs pressed flat. “I should shave for this, right?”

“I don’t think you need to do anything drastic,” says Jared. “The beard suits your jawline. Just shave your neck and…let me do it?”

Richard hesitates this time. “I think I can handle it. You’ve already been in full-on Jeeves mode here—”

“I suppose I have been, guilty as charged.” Jared thinks of himself as being easy to read, a straightforward person, but he knows that Richard always finds his motivations a little mysterious. Sometimes you have to tell Richard the subtext. “But it makes me feel better.”

“Then go nuts, man. I’d only fuck it up.”

Maybe that’s what Jared really loves, that permission to do whatever he wants. He sits Richard down on the shower stool in the bathroom, turning his Captain’s face into the light. “This came in with such a beautiful colour,” says Jared, smoothing the hair on Richard’s cheeks with his fingers. “I know you weren’t thinking of your appearance, but you and Dinesh both carry it off so well.”

“I just stopped giving a shit. I wish I could opt out of all this body stuff,” Richard says, relaxing a bit under Jared’s hands. “It’s like a shitty subscription box series that you can’t cancel. Unsubscribe from all future hair growth, I don’t do anything with the stuff I’ve already got. I can’t believe you’re still…I mean, do you have a portrait of yourself in your attic that gets dirtier and dirtier?”

Jared smiles, straightening the last few hairs with a comb before setting the guard on the trimmer. “Well, as much as it seems to be a new Pied Piper tradition, I can’t really grow a decent-looking beard. I’m afraid of looking too much like Lincoln. Stay quiet for a minute while I clean you up…”

And Richard does, submitting to Jared’s careful hands. Jared tidies the margins of the beard first, then tips Richard’s chin up to trim underneath it. The hair’s a little darker on his neck, curly enough to produce ingrown hairs—no wonder he’s been scratching. Jared applies a hot compress and tweezes the hairs out, applying tea tree oil afterwards with a Q-tip, but Richard only allows that process twice before begging for Jared to stop.

With a few judicious snips from the small silver scissors in the shaving kit, Jared cleans up Richard’s hair as well, and finally rakes some of his own Christophe Robin balm through it. 

“Okay, we’re not going to the Oscars, Jared.”

“That’s fine. Go get dressed.”

 

It’s always worth the trouble. You’d never know that Richard woke up this morning with Mountain Dew stains on his hoodie. Jared is proud of his CEO, sitting next to him in the front pew of St. Thomas Aquinas Church. Muriel didn’t have much family left, just a granddaughter and her young family, so the ushers direct Jared and Richard forward to fill out the mourners’ row. 

And Jared does okay until midway through the service. The Nigerian priest, resplendent in white silken vestments, delivers a stern homily about human fragility, which might be a little harsh for this audience of privileged Palo Alto types.

“Many of you believe that you have until tomorrow to live a virtuous life. Muriel did not have until tomorrow. Perhaps some of you here today will not have tomorrow either. You must live well now, and not later.”

It’s not wrong, exactly, but it doesn’t sound like he knew Muriel, either.

The thought of Muriel’s whole body being contained in the little oaken box—everything that didn’t fly out of the crematorium’s chimney on the gusts of super-heated air—seems both impossible and inevitable. Muriel’s dried-leaf body and gentle arthritic claws, gone. Her hoarse corvid laugh, gone. Someone would have taken her little gold-rimmed glasses off her face. Removed her wig to expose her poor thin grey wisps. Her blouses printed with bright tropical fish and flowers, left in a garbage bag for the St. Vincent de Paul Society. 

Jared has lost it.

He’s doubled over in his seat with his hands over his mouth, shoulders shaking, trying not to make a sound. He has no right to disturb Muriel’s real family with such a display. Except he can’t stop the tears and he also can’t quite breathe, and Richard’s hesitant hand is on his elbow.

“Jared, hey, come on, let’s take a minute…”

As always, Jared is humiliated simply by his own size: it’s never possible to discreetly duck out when every movement of his inconvenient crane-like body seems to attract attention. _Who do you think you are?_ He stumbles over the unfamiliar encumbrance of the kneeler and follows Richard out to the hallway. 

They sit down on a bench outside the cloakroom, and Jared finds his emergency stash of Kleenex in his jacket pocket. “I am so sorry,” he murmurs to Richard when he can breathe again. “I completely lost my composure.”

“Yeah, but it’s a funeral,” says Richard, softly. “If you can’t cry now then when the hell _is_ it allowed?”

“I can’t believe she’s gone.” Jared can feel Richard’s habitual stutter even in his touch, which lands on his shoulder with an uneasy thump and flutter, like a pigeon hitting a window. Then, when Jared doesn’t pull away or protest, Richard relaxes and strokes his back slowly. “How can people just be gone?”

“I don’t know. Why…” Richard trails off for a few moments, then says, “This is gonna come out wrong. Why are your friends so old?”

Jared’s trying to mop up, but every so often he overflows again. “I met Muriel when I was volunteering at Food Not Bombs, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh. Yeah, volunteer stuff has a lot of old people,” says Richard. “I guess I just mean…like—wait, no, what I should have asked is what you liked about Muriel. That’s what I was trying to get at. Boom, social-skills headshot, look at me go.”

Jared smiles a little, even though he feels repulsive, leaking tears. “We used to go on nature walks, every other Saturday. Muriel knew every single flower that grows in this part of the state, every tree by its species. And the mushrooms—this eucalyptus tree in her yard had an enormous sulphur shelf growth—let me show you…”

He got out his phone and thumbed through his albums until he found the right one, Muriel smiling next to a tree with a hideous yellow-orange…thing growing on its trunk in rubbery layers.

“It looks like an enemy in a Mario game.”

“ _Laetiporus gilbertsonii_ is what it’s called. Chicken of the woods.” Jared swipes ahead to Muriel in her kitchen, now grinning maniacally while holding up a butcher’s knife. She’s stuck a butter knife between the folds of the growth and pretends to duel. Finally, the fungus is tamed, sliced up on a plate with deep-fried sage leaves and a bed of rice jewelled with pomegranate seeds and golden raisins.

“That actually looks good, wow. I’d eat that.”

“Muriel said it can cause gastro upset in sensitive people, even though it’s edible, so I didn’t push my luck. But it smelled heavenly—she made me fried tofu in the same garlic sauce and it was amazing. She’d been vegan for twenty years, vegetarian for fifty. Every weekend she took her SUV around to the grocery stores in the neighbourhood, collecting food that was about to expire. Bread, potatoes, vegetables, whatever the stores would let her take. We never knew what ingredients we’d have, but every week we made a meal here in the church kitchen, and we’d serve it out in the parking lot.”

“Like for homeless people?”

“For anyone, we didn’t ask questions. It’s free food, no strings attached. Which would have gone into the garbage, otherwise. Muriel didn’t believe in waste, when so many people have nothing. We got fined by the city a few times, actually, for serving food in public without a permit. They don’t like Food Not Bombs.”

“Pricks.” Richard’s looking over Jared’s shoulder at the phone. “She sounds awesome, though.”

“She was. She really was.” Jared’s still thinking about Richard’s other question, the one he tried to take back. _Why are your friends so old?_ “Old people don’t…they’re easy to make friends with,” says Jared, smoothing out the crumpled tissues on his lap. “They don’t need you to be cool. In fact, they kind of prefer it if you’re not. They’re not trying to get anything out of you—it’s not about networking. They just want some company to play checkers or go birding. A fourth for bridge. Maybe they want you to try a blind date with their grand-niece sometimes, but that’s it.”

“That makes sense.” After a moment, almost as if to himself, Richard adds, “And they need you.”

“Muriel was very independent. I thought she had another strong decade in her. But maybe that’s true, maybe I like knowing…knowing that my friends would be lonely without me.” Jared balls up the tissue in his hands. “Is that horrible of me? It is.”

“You’re putting like the worst possible spin on it,” says Richard, and he takes the tattered tissue away from Jared, replacing it with a clean but mashed one from his own pocket. “It’s okay to be happy that you make a difference to them.”

“Maybe.”

“And you did, look at her smiling. She loved you.”

Jared swallows but can’t say anything more. He keeps moving his thumb over the screen of his phone, because he doesn’t want to see Muriel’s face go dark.

 

When he can breathe again, Jared splashes some water on his face in the bathroom and they go back to the nave. Richard trips on the kneeler but only causes a small ruckus. 

This time, Jared holds it together at his usual standard, even though it chokes him up to see them take the little wooden box away during the recessional. A cheesy hymn from the ’70s, sung in the typical apathetic Catholic style, and Jared can’t keep from crying like he’s at a Stevie Nicks concert.

_if you pass through raging waters in the sea, you shall not drown_  
_if you walk amid the burning flames, you shall not be harmed_  
_if you stand before the power of hell and death is at your side_  
_know that I am with you through it all_

He’s walking blindly through the crowd, following Richard, when one of the other ladies sweeps over to wrap him up in a hug. “Oh, Jared…oh, honey, I saw you had to leave, I’m so sorry…”

It’s Marge, his friend from Swedish weaving class, and Jared closes his eyes as she holds him. “Really, I’m the one who’s sorry,” he says to her. “I didn’t mean to cause a fuss.”

“How could you cause a fuss, sweetie? I know you must be devastated, especially when you were so close to Gloria. They do always come in threes, so you can bet I’m taking my vitamins.” Marge squeezes Jared’s arm as they part. “Come along, let’s get some food into you. Your blood sugar’s probably crashing. Is this Richard?”

“Yes, sorry. This is Richard Hendricks, CEO of Pied Piper,” Jared says, stepping aside to present Richard. “And this is Marge Campbell, we met at knitting but now the group’s diversified into general craft discussions.”

“Jared’s told us all so much about you. I thought you’d be taller,” says Marge, pulling Richard in for a hug as well.

Richard isn’t really all about hugs, as Jared knows, but he’s on his best behaviour and accepts the handling with a polite smile. “No, um, pretty much just this size. But—yeah, if there’s food, that sounds…that sounds good. Uh, I’m very sorry about Muriel,” he remembers to add. “My condolences.”

“Thank you, honey, that’s sweet. He’s sweet,” Marge reports to Jared, bustling ahead to lead them to the church hall where the food is laid out. “You boys sit down, I’ll bring you some tea. He drinks tea, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but not too strong,” says Jared. “Tiny amount of milk, no sugar.” Marge already knows how Jared prefers his own tea, with vanilla Rice Dream and a subtle thread of date syrup.

Richard is more obviously ill-at-ease now, one knee jittering up and down under the card table, poking at a flower arrangement with one close-bitten fingertip to examine the trace of yellow pollen left behind on his skin. When Marge is gone to the tea and coffee station, he says to Jared, “Am I cramping your style here, do you want to spend time with your friends?”

“Are you getting tired?”

“No—Jared, stop…worrying about me. I’m here for you, we’ll stay as long as you want.”

Jared knows that he’s taxing Richard’s energy reserves a bit—a funeral is technically a type of party, something that Richard seems to hate on a very pure level. If there are strangers and napkins and snacks, it’s as though the whole room vibrates at some frequency he can’t handle. It’s hard to watch Richard wilting in the light of day, and it takes an effort for Jared to remind himself that an hour for lunch is not unreasonable. 

They eat egg salad sandwiches and lemon squares, and they drink cup after cup of tea. Jared talks to Muriel’s granddaughter Dawn and her family, bouncing Dawn’s baby daughter on his knee. A little girl with flyaway curls, pulling on Jared’s tie and trying to liberate a pen from his breast pocket. Future generations. It doesn’t really help with that big empty feeling of _no-more-Muriel_ , but it’s nice.

 

Dawn gives Jared one of Muriel’s flower displays to bring home. “My house is full of lilies,” she says, pressing a bird-of-paradise into Richard’s hands as well. “Take some of these off my hands, will you?”

As they drive home, Jared’s Volt is full of the green florist-shop smells of the arrangements. Richard holds the bird-of-paradise in his lap, lost in thought and gazing out the window.

“It was—” Jared stops to clear his throat. They’re paused at a light. “It was really kind of you to come with me, Richard.”

“Huh? Oh. No, man, it’s fine. I’m sorry I wasn’t…that you had to physically haul me out of bed like that. That was shitty.”

“Well. I’ve missed taking care of you. Is that—no, forget I said anything. Holden’s doing a wonderful job.”

“Jared…” Richard shifts the plant over in his lap. “Listen, do you want to hire somebody else? Because we still can.”

“No, no, not at all. Unless you want to.”

“I think he’s fine. He’s not _you_ , but I don’t really…” 

“What?”

Richard’s struggling to articulate something. “Like, what you did for me this afternoon. You pried me out of bed with a spatula and took me home and turned me into a human being for the day. You know? Nobody else could have done that. That’s Jared-level stuff. But most of the time, when things are normal, Holden does everything I need him to do. So could somebody else, though, and if you just plain don’t like this kid then we’ll cut him loose. His benefits haven’t kicked in and it’s not like this company’s going places. We’d probably be doing him a favour.”

“I wouldn’t say I don’t like him. Maybe I’m jealous,” says Jared. “A tiny bit. But don’t tell him I said so. And don’t fire him. It’s tough out there for a kid his age.”

“Okay, well, don’t be jealous. Because I didn’t spend today at Holden’s friend’s funeral. Just…you’re a lot more valuable to me for the big things you do, okay? I like the little stuff, but—I mean, Gavin _really_ wasted your talent,” says Richard, warming to his theme now that he has a chance to criticise Gavin Belson. “Doing menial bullshit. He surrounded himself with all those spineless dipshits even though he had you—and he couldn’t even remember your name.”

“You’re nothing like him.” Jared pauses to change lanes, checking his mirrors, but then says, “Do you want me to take you back to the office, or…?”

Richard is fussing with the seatbelt’s shoulder strap, and he’s muffled when he says, “I guess we might as well go home.”

“Go home?” 

“Yeah, I’m not gonna get any work done today, I’m useless. We can go back to the house, whatever.”

“The incubator, you mean?”

Richard sags in his seat. “Oh fuck, you’re right, I forgot—”

“It’s okay,” Jared says. “I know what you meant. The condo’s been empty without you.”

 

They go back to the condo together, and put the flowers in the window with the southern exposure. Richard orders a mountain of pad thai from GrubHub and they watch one of Muriel’s favourite old movies, Walter Matthau and Elaine May in _A New Leaf._ Jared has a yahrtzeit candle from the kosher section at the grocery store, and they light it for Muriel, the little blue tin sitting on a folded sheet of aluminum foil for safety, burning all night long on the kitchen counter. 

It’s still burning when Jared wakes up the next morning, a tiny flame in a pool of wax inside the tin.

**Author's Note:**

> Reader, I earnestly desire your friendship: follow at [doctorcolubra](http://doctorcolubra.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


End file.
